JOURNAL OF LATEX CLASS FILES, VOL. 14, NO.

8, AUGUST 2015 1

Paper Title TO BE DECIDED

Test Name1
1 School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA

In this paper, an analytic analysis of the first seven derivatives of the Gaussian and the hyperbolic secant pulses is carried out
through a basic optical communications system. Moreover, two important design metrics are discussed throughout the analysis; the
time-bandwidth product (TBP), and the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR). First, a new matrix is introduced in this paper, namely
the row matrix; which is used to calculate the SIR, ensuring the agreement of the produced pulses to the constraints of the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), and quantifying how much the pulse violates them, when it does. The second metric discussed
is the TBP, which is obtained using a variance-based definition for the pulse width. This definition has many advantages compared
to other definitions, as discussed in the paper. The analysis carried out in this paper falls within the context of the ultra-wide
band (UWB) optical communications; a basic optical system is discussed and analyzed, as well as applying the introduced metrics
analytically on the first seven derivatives of the Gaussian and hyperbolic secant pulses.

Index Terms—UWB, TBP, SIR, Gaussian Pulse, Sech Pulse.

I. I NTRODUCTION

W IRELESS and RF services have become a necessity

in modern daily life, new technologies and advances
are continuously emerging in this field. However, great ad-
vances always meet limitations. The congestion of the radio
spectrum by the current RF services is one of the most
obvious limitations. It became harder for new technologies and
services to fit in the spectrum without interfering with existing
services. Therefore, the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) regulates the spectrum among all existing and new
RF services. Moreover, the congestion problem continues to
be a major issue due to the ever-increasing number of users
demanding access to a wide range of information as fast and
secure as possible, anytime and anywhere.
Thus, a proposed idea, introduced mainly for the short-range
communications, was the Ultra-Wide Band (UWB); which is a
technology for the transmission of data using techniques which
cause a spreading of the radio energy over a very wide range
of frequency band, with a very low-power spectral density. Fig. 1: FCC Spectral Mask depicting power constraints on
The low-power spectral density limits the interference with different bandwidths
the traditional RF services occupying the spectrum, and the
high bandwidth allows for a very high data throughput for
communications devices. II. T IME -BANDWIDTH PRODUCT
The FCC regulates the power spectral density of the UWB The time-bandwidth product (TBP) is, as suggested by its
technology over its bandwidth in order to prevent the interfer- name, the product of the temporal width and the spectral width
ence with current RF services occupying the spectrum. FCC of a pulse. It stems from the need to quantify the inverse
spectral mask over the bandwidth of 12 GHz is shown in Fig . relationship between a Fourier transform pair; that is, the
1, it plots the effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) against inverse relationship between time and frequency for a certain
frequency. As illustrated in Fig. 1, the useful band for indoor pulse shape.
UWB communications ranges from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz as it has In ultra-fast laser physics, it is common to define the width
the highest EIRP and the large bandwidth of 7.5 GHz [5]. of a pulse as the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) in
In this paper, an analytic analysis of the first seven deriva- both time- and frequency-domain. However, in this paper, a
tives of the Gaussian and the hyperbolic secant pulses are different definition of the width of the pulse is applied for
carried out through a fundamental optical communications various reasons which are discussed in this section.
system, shown in Fig. 2. Moreover, two important metrics Note that the minimum possible TBP is obtained for
are introduced throughout the analysis; the time-bandwidth transform-limited pulses. Therefore, TBP is often used for
product (TBP), and the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR). indicating how close a pulse is to the transform limit. In other
JOURNAL OF LATEX CLASS FILES, VOL. 14, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015 2

analytically define the TBP of a pulse, the integrals in (1) and

(2) (time and frequency domains moment functions) must be
evaluated first.

B. The Gaussian pulse

1) The frequency domain
The following integral is to be evaluated to determine the
spectral width of the Gaussian pulse of general mth -order
derivative:
Fig. 2: Basic Optical system diagram
Z∞
I= ω n |G(m) (ω)|2 dω (6)
words, it indicates how close the pulse duration is to the limit −∞
which is set by its spectral width. TBP is an aspect of the pulse
quality; transform-limited pulses have the minimum possible
TBP, whereas chirped pulses have larger values for the TPB.
(6) is then analytically evaluated as follows [APPENDIX]:
A. The mathematical definition  √
(2m + n − 1)! π
Following a similar approach to that of calculating the , even n, n6=0, 2m+n 6= 0



 n + 2m − 2 2m+n−1
variance of a probability density function, the normalized nth  2m+0.5n−1.5 ( )!τ


2
moment function in both time and frequency domains were
r
2π
first established as follows:


2
, 2m+n=0
 τ



0 , otherwise
R∞ n 2 (7)
t |Ψ(t)| dt
n −∞
ht i = R∞ (1) 2) The time domain
2
|Ψ(t)| dt Similarly, the following integral is to be evaluated to de-
−∞ termine the temporal width of the Gaussian pulse of general
mth -order derivative [APPENDIX]:
R∞  2
ω n Ψ̂(ω) dω
 
−∞ Z∞
hω n i = R∞ 2 (2)
tn |g (m) (t)|2 dt

I= (8)
Ψ̂(ω) dω
 
−∞ −∞

Furthermore, the temporal and spectral widths were defined (8) is also analytically evaluated as follows:
similar to the standard deviation as follows:
2√
q I =τ n+1−2m (m!) π
 
∆t = ht2 i − hti
2
(3) b m2P
c−1 2−(m−2j+1.5n−0.5) (2m − 4j + n − 1)!
 z(n, m) + n + 
2
 j=0 (j!) (m − 2j)!2 (m − 2j + − 1)! 
2
 
q  m 
 b 2 c j−1
2  P P (−1)i+j 2−(m−(i+j)+1.5n−1.5) (2m − 2(i + j) + n − 1)!

∆ω = hω 2 i − hωi (4) 
j=0 i=0 (j!)(i!)(m − 2j)!(m − 2i)!(m − (i + j) + 0.5n − 1)!
Thus, the TBP is defined in the following form:
(9)
Where z(n, m) is given by:
T BP = ∆ω.∆t (5)
The previous definition of the temporal width and the (n + 1)2−1.5n+0.5 (n − 1)!

spectral width in (3) and (4) respectively, has some advantages

   2 , n is even and m is odd
(( m

2 )!) (0.5n − 1)!


over the definition of the FWHM; those are its highly invariant 



mathematical definition that depends only on the pulse shape, 
 2−1.5n+0.5 (n − 1)!

and its ability to determine the pulse width of an odd function; z(n, m) =   2 , n is even and m is even
such as the first derivative of the Gaussian pulse. these 

 (( m
2 )!) (0.5n − 1)!

advantages proved very useful in the analysis carried out in this 

1


paper, justifying the choice of the definition. In this section, 
  m  2√

 , n =0
the TBP for the Gaussian and hyperbolic secant pulses of (( 2 )!) 2
general order derivatives are analytically derived. In order to (10)
JOURNAL OF LATEX CLASS FILES, VOL. 14, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015 3

∞
sech(x)2k+2 xn dx
R
By evaluating the previous integrals through the given equa- TABLE I: Results for
−∞
tions, analytically determining the TBP for a general mth -order
derivative Gaussian pulse is feasible. x0 x2

sech(x)2 2 1.65

C. The hyperbolic secant pulse sech(x)4 1.33 0.43

1) The frequency domain sech(x)6 1.07 0.21

The following integral is to be evaluated to determine the
spectral width of the hyperbolic secant pulse of general mth - sech(x)8 0.91 0.13
order derivative:
sech(x)10 0.81 0.09
Z∞
I= ω n |S (m) (ω)|2 dω (11) sech(x)12 0.73 0.07

−∞
sech(x)14 0.68 0.05

The previous equation is then analytically evaluated as

sech(x)16 0.64 0.04
follows [3]:

2 2 n+2m+1 1
I= ( ) Bn+2m ( ) (12)
π τ 2  
k n
R
x sech (x) dx
Where Bi (x0 ) is the Bernoulli polynomial of order i substi- "
xk

tuted in with point x0 . n n+2
= −2n e−nx F
2 1 (n, ; ; −e −2x
)
n 2 2
2) The time domain
kxk−1 n n n+2 n+2
Similarly, the following integral is to be evaluated to de- + 3 F2 (n, , ; , ; −e−2x )
termine the temporal width of the hyperbolic secant pulse of n2 2 2 2 2
general mth -order derivative k(k − 1)xk−2
n3
Z∞  
I= tn |s(m) (t)|2 dt (13) n n n n+2 n+2 n+2
; −e−2x )
4 F3 (n, , , ; , ,
−∞ 2 2 2 2 2 2
+...+
k!
The previous equation is also analytically derived in the n k+1 #
following form: n n+2
k+2 Fk+1 (n, (k + 1){ } ; (k + 1){ } ; −e − 2x)
  2 2
Pb m2 c
r 2
Pm−2r m − 2r +C
I= (Em
r=0 ) k=0 Ak
k (16)
m
Pb 2 c Pr−1 r j
+2 r=0 (14)
  j=0 Em Em  
Pm−2r r+j m−r−j III. S IGNAL TO INTERFERENCE RATIO
k=0 (−1) k
Ak
The UWB technology was introduced as a technique to
make better use of the RF spectrum without interfering with
Where Ak is defined as: current RF services. UWB signals are short ranged, carrier-less
signals that can support very high bit rates.
Z∞ As aforementioned, The FCC mask regulates the UWB
k 2k+2 n
Ak = (−1) sech(t) t dt (15) technology with certain EIRP regulations over the 12 GHz
−∞ spectrum. However, generating UWB signals that perfectly
follow the FCC mask is not feasible. Therefore, the SIR is
introduced to quantify the violation of the generated pulses to
And where Eab is the double-indexed Euler number [AP- the FCC regulations in reference to the total power obeying the
PENDIX], defined for constants a and b. FCC mask. SIR can be used as an important design parameter
The integral in (15) is then evaluated in TABLE (I) by taking to help achieve highest possible EIRP over the widest possible
the limits to the expression in (16) from [8]. band.
JOURNAL OF LATEX CLASS FILES, VOL. 14, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015 4

In this work, SIR is mathematically defined by first defining

the row matrix; which is a binary matrix where the ones
indicate the violation of the FCC mask as shown in the
following equation:

Zω2
sign (Xnorm (ω) − SF CC (ω)) + 1
ρ= dω (17)
4πBW
ω1

Where, Xnorm from (17) is the spectrum of the generated

pulse normalized to the FCC mask limit.

Fig. 4: Signal to interference ratio varying for the seven

derivatives of Gaussian function with different values for
FWHM

Fig. 3: Row matrix for the first derivative of the Gaussian

pulse

As illustrated in Fig. 3, the shaded area is the area that

exceeds the FCC mask, and it is represented by the one in the
binary row matrix. Thus, the SIR is mathematically defined as
follows:
R
ρ(ω) × Xnorm (ω)dω
SIR = Ω R (18)
SF CC (ω)dω
Ω

(18) indicates the compliance of the generated pulse to the

FCC mask. Furthermore, Fig.4 and Fig.5 plot the change of the
SIR with the full-width at half maximum (FWHM) for the first
seven derivatives of the Gaussian and hyperbolic secant pulses,
respectively. It shall be noted that a system designer would be
interested in the lowest possible SIR. Thus, as illustrated in
Fig.4 and Fig.5, higher orders of derivative reach lower SIR
over a wider range of the FWHM.
IV. T HE OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM
In this section, an analysis of the basic optical communica-
tions system Fig. 2 is carried out. Furthermore, the TBP and
SIR are applied throughout the system and proven to be very
useful design parameters for a similar system.
Fig. 5: Signal to interference ratio varying for the seven
derivatives of Sech function with different values for FWHM
A. Mach-Zehnder modulation
Mach-Zehnder Modulator (MZM) is an electro-optic mod-
ulator. It is commonly used for amplitude modulation of the
optical signals. Using electrical potential to control the device,
it splits the optical wave into two waves which are guided in
two waveguides; where a relative phase is added to the two
waves such that when combined at the output they interfere
constructively or destructively which in turn modulates the
amplitude of the output light.
As illustrated in Fig. 6, the input incident light wave is
JOURNAL OF LATEX CLASS FILES, VOL. 14, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015 5

Fig. 6: MZM[9]

divided into two waves at the optical Y junction at the input,

each wave with energy E2in [7]. The field of both the optical
waves guided in the MZM arms are given as follows:
Ein Fig. 7: MZM transfer Characteristics for different Vπ .
E1 = = ejφ1 (t)
2
(19)
Ein jφ2 (t) 1) The time-bandwidth product
E2 = =e
2 Calculating the TBP at this stage of the system plays two
The applied potential on the MZM arms causes a relative important roles; it indicates the effects of the modulation on
phase shift between the two waves, then the two waves are the pulse being close to its transform limit, also calculating
recombined at the optical Y junction at the output. The field the TBP before the communications channel of the system is
of the output light wave is as follows: an important step in designing the channel as will be seen in
1   the following section.
Eout (t) = × Ein (t) × ejφ1 (t) + ejφ2 (t) (20)
2
B. The optical fiber
Where φ1 and φ2 are given by:
Optical fibers (mostly flexible waveguides for light) have
Vin
φ1 (t) = π become a core technology in optical communications allowing
Vπ extremely fast and low-cost transmission of mostly digital
(21)
Vin data. In the optical system at hand, the communication channel
φ2 (t) = π is a single mode optical fiber (SM F ); an SMF only supports
Vπ
a single propagation mode, propagation modes are all the
In the case of an opposite phase shift that is induced in the possible solutions of the Helmholtz equation for the wave
interferometer arms of the MZM, making φ1 (t) = −φ2 (t) = propagating in the fiber.
φ(t) , the following input-output relationship is obtained: The propagation of the optical waves inside the SMF is
Eout (t)  ∆φ
M ZM (t)
  V (t) 
in
governed by Maxwells equations which lead to the wave
= cos = cos π (22) equation:
Ein (t) 2 2Vπ
1 ∂2E ∂ 2 P (E)
Where, ∇2 E − = −µ o (24)
c2 ∂t2 ∂t2
∆φM ZM (t) = φ1 (t) − φ2 (t) = 2φ1 (t) Where, E is the Electric field vector, µo is the vacuum
permeability, and P is the polarization density field. If the
Furthermore, the power efficiency relation for the MZM is
input field is assumed to propagate in the +ve z-direction and
obtained as follows[4]:
is polarized in the +ve x-direction, then (24) becomes [1]:
 2    ∂A(z, t) j ∂ 2 A(z, t)
Pout (t)  Eout (t)  1 Vin (t) = − β2 (25)
= = 1 + cos π (23) ∂z 2 ∂t2
Pin (t) Ein (t)  2 Vπ (t)
α
− A(z, t)
Fig. 7 is the characteristic curve for the MZM. It is favorable 2
to obtain a linearized approximation of the curve, and as 2
+jγ|A(z, t)| A(z, t)
illustrated on the curve, the linear region of the characteristic
relation increases proportionally with Vπ . Where, A(z, t) is the slowly varying envelope of the
Moreover, Fig. 8 illustrates the outputs for the first seven electric field, α is the fiber loss coefficient [1/km], β2 is
derivatives of the hyperbolic secant pulses. the second order propagation constant [ps2 /km], and γ is the
JOURNAL OF LATEX CLASS FILES, VOL. 14, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015
Fig. 8: MZM transfer Characteristics for different Vπ .
nonlinear coefficient which equals 2πn2 /λo Aeff where, n2
is the nonlinear index coefficient, Aef f is the effective core
area of the fiber, λo is the center wavelength.
(25) is a considerably simplified version of the often called
the generalized nonlinear Schrdinger equation (GN LSE).
The GNLSE which is known to be applicable for propagation
of pulses of pulse widths greater than ≈ 50fs , this corresponds
to a spectral width of ≈ 20 T Hz. However, when the pulse
width is greater than 1ps, the GNLSE can be simplified
to (25) because the Raman effect and the self-steepening
effect terms are negligible compared to the Kerr effect term.
The third order dispersion term is also ignored because it
is negligible compared to the second order dispersion term
unless the operation is near the zero-dispersion wavelength.
1) The split-step Fourier method
[6] In this work, (25) was numerically solved using the
split-step Fourier method (SSFM). SSFM is a pseudo spectral
numerical method that is usually applied to solve nonlinear
partial differential equations. This method was applied to solve
(25) by basically solving A(t) for every ∆Z along the length
of the transmission fiber such that A(t) for a certain split in
the length of the fiber is given by the following equation:
∆z
A(z + ∆z, t) ≈ exp(∆z L̂) exp( [N̂ (z) (26)
2
6
+N̂ (z + ∆z)])A(z, t)
Where, the linear operator L̂ and the nonlinear operator N̂
are:
j ∂2 α
L̂ = − β2 2 − (27)
2 ∂t 2
2
N̂ = jγ |A(z, t)| (28)
The previous equation was derived based on the assumption
of the SSFM that the linear and nonlinear terms are treated
separately in the solution. However, for arbitrarily small ∆z,
this assumption holds. This method was proven to be very
accurate compared to other numerical methods[10]. Fig. 9
shows the solution of an input Gaussian pulse of zeroth-order
derivative.
2) The Time-bandwidth product
As aforementioned, the TBP is a very unique metric to take
in consideration when designing a similar communication sys-
tem. However, another critical metric emerges when designing
the fiber, that is the distance-bandwidth product (DBWP). The
TBP and the DBWP together make a crucial design parameter
when designing the transmission fiber for a certain system.
The DBWP is simply the product of the fiber length and
the input signal bandwidth, its a characteristic of the fiber.
JOURNAL OF LATEX CLASS FILES, VOL. 14, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015 7

Fig. 10: Amount of change in TBP vs distance for Gaussian

Fig. 9: Solution of an input Gaussian pulse of zeroth-order pulse derivatives
derivative.

The TBP and the DBWP show some of the trade-offs that
are present when designing the fiber for a similar system
such as, for a given data rate, there are some constraints on
the bandwidth and the temporal width of the input pulse,
also the distance of the fiber. Moreover, these constraints
when violated produce design problems such as possible inter-
symbol interference and high bit error rate.
The TBP was calculated along the distance of the fiber
for the different derivatives of the Gaussian pulse is shown
in Fig. 10. From the figure, it could be seen that the TBP
increases with the propagation distance due to dispersion and
the non-linearity of the fiber.

Fig. 10 illustrates the amount of change that the TBP of

the pulse undergoes during propagation. It is assumed that the
transmitted pulses are transform-limited pulses, having the
minimum TBP for the given pulse. Its worth mentioning that
transform-limited pulses can minimize the effect of chromatic
dispersion during propagation in the fiber. Thus, maximizing Fig. 11: SIR vs Distance for Gaussian pulse derivatives of
the possible transmission distance. different orders

3) Signal to interference ratio

SIR is a critical design parameter in most of communication
systems. SIR indicates the violation ratio to the FCC mask.
SIR was also calculated along the transmission distance. Fig.
11 shows the derivatives of the Gaussian pulse having near-
constant SIRs along transmission distance. The non-linearity
in the SMF is the cause for the slight change in the SIR
along propagation distance.
Finally, at the receiving side, the optical signal is converted
to the electrical signal, which could be accomplished using a
photodetector.
C. Photodetector
As a final stage of the system, the photodetector is used
to convert the received optical signal to electrical signal for
further processing. The main component of the photodetector
is the photodiode; which is a semiconductor device that con-
verts light into an electrical current. The current is generated
when protons are absorbed with enough energy to release
electrons from the valence band and conduct current in the
external circuit. Ideally, there should be one electron in the
conduction band for every incident photon. However, the
practical photodiode will have a non-perfect efficiency; this
JOURNAL OF LATEX CLASS FILES, VOL. 14, NO. 8, AUGUST 2015 8

efficiency is measured for the device and it is labelled as the

Quantum efficiency.
Furthermore, another parameter for the device is the respon-
sivity R(λ) and it is defined as follows:
Iph λ
R(λ) = =η (29)
Popt 1.24
The responsivity of the photodiode measures the effectiveness
of the device in converting light to electrical current for a
certain wavelength.

V. C ONCLUSION
UWB technology has various design trade-offs and param-
eters; the most important is obeying the FCC regulations
and constraints. The analysis carried out in this paper for
a complete optical communication system has proven the
significance of the TBP and the SIR in the design process of
a similar system; the TBP quantifies the quality of the signal
throughout the system by measuring distortion in the pulse
shape, whilst the SIR ensures the compliance of the pulses
to the FCC constraints. Moreover, the mathematical analysis
carried out for the first seven derivatives of the Gaussian-
and sech-shaped pulses to calculate the TBP is suitable for
analytical synthesis and tracing of some optical devices such
as the optical differentiator [2].

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank... (To be filled)

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